Improvement in whiffletrees



P. VB. GURTIS.

Whifetree. v No 57,248. Patented Aug. I4, 1866v @5 .ix .g agi /fzwey afeafar 5? @wdmmf 'L PETERS FjHoTo-LmwGRAPHER. wlsmuarou. D C.

' UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

PHILIP B. GURTI S, OF AMESBURY, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOR TO HIMSELF AND ALBERT P. SAWYER, OF SAME PLACE.

IMPROVEMENT IN WHIIFFLETREES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 57,248, (lated August 14, 1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that I, PHILIP B. CURTIS, of Amesbury, in the county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, have made a new and useful invention. for attaching a horse to and readily releasing him from a carriage, my said invention being a safety apparatus for preventing injury to a carriage or its inmate or inmates by an unmanageable horse; and I do hereby declare the same to be fully described in the following specification, and represented inthe accompanying drawings, of which- Figure 1 is a top View, and Fig. 2 a front elevation, of a oarriage-whifletree furnished with my invention.

In carrying out my improvement I provide the whiftletree A with two eyes or loops, b b, fastened to it at or near its two extremities. Each eye or loop has a friction-roller, c, arranged in it, the loop and roller being as shown in the abovementioned Figs. 1 and 2, and also in Fig. 3, which is an end view ot' them and the whitfletree.

Near the middle of the whiietree I arrange a strap, d, to be fastened to and to go around the whifiletree, and to extend from its front, with two projections or bolt-holders, e e, provided with holes for reception of a bolt, j', to go vertically through them, suoli bolt having a spring, s, to keep it in place, and such spring being fastened, at or near one end of it, to the whit'etree, and arranged and formed as represented.

B and C are two leather straps provided at their outer ends with snap-hooks g g, or equivalent devices for connecting the traces of a harness to such straps. These straps are carried through the loops b b, and into the space between the projections e e, and one of such straps is there lapped on the other, and both have the bolt f going down through them.

A rope, 7L, attached to such bolt, is to lead up to and over the dasher of the carriage, and may be fastened to some convenient part thereof.

The safety-spring s is to keep the holt in the holders e e under ordinary circumstances; but on pulling on the rope 7L the spring should recede and allow the bolt to be drawn out of the two straps.

In order to connect the horse to the whiflietree the traces of his harness are to be hitched to the snaphooks of the straps, the thills being carried through the tugs of the saddle in the ordinary way.

In case the animal should become restive or unruly, so as to endanger the carriage or any occupant thereof, or incase it may be desirable to detach the horse from the carriage while he may he running away with it, a person in the carriage will only have to pull on the rope so as to drawn the bolt out of the straps, when they will he set free and be drawn through the loops of the whiftletree by the horse, who will thus become disengaged from the carriage.

I am awa-re that it is not new to apply to a whiflietree an apparatus or means of discharging ordisconnecting the traces there-from for the purpose of separating a horse from a carriage, and therefore I make no claim to such, my invention being a specific mode or a special safety apparatus, or means of aeeomplishing such a result.

l. The arrangement and combination of the trace-attachment straps B C, and the bolt f and its holders e e, with the whifiletreeA and its end loops I) b, the whole bei ngsubstantially as specified.

2. The combination of the safety-spring with the whifletree, the bolt j', its holders, and the attachment-straps B (l, applied to such whifetree, as specified.

PHILIP B. CURTIS.

Witnesses A. O. WEBSTER, DANIEL WEBSTER. 

